


Reflection and Release

by brinnabot



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cerebro, Inner Dialogue, One Shot, Post-Apocalypse, Professor X - Freeform, X-Men Apocalypse, X-men - Freeform, like post Apocalypse the movie, magneto - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:12:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9516500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnabot/pseuds/brinnabot
Summary: What if Charles had died during the final fight with En Sabah Nur? This is a short work from Erik's perspective after the dust settles.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a roleplay group I am a part of, in which Erik was not a horseman (but his daughter Lorna was) and Charles died during the final fight with Apocalypse. Erik is at the mansion to be with his daughter and is having a really hard time coming to terms with Charles being gone. But, I think this still works as an angsty AU one shot. So, enjoy the angst!

**It was the little things.**

_Why do people always say that? **If they matter so much, why call them small?**_

There were things that Erik carried with him that would be considered small– but they, truly, were the things that meant the most. It was cliché.

 _Being_ a cliché wasn’t something he enjoyed but that part of him wasn’t well known. So he let it be.

Erik’s mind was wandering and wandering and his feet carried him throughout the halls right along with it. Whether he wore his helmet or not was hit or miss– sometimes he would, sometimes he would leave it behind. Other times he would carry it with him. There wasn’t much of a rhyme or reason to it.

There wasn’t much of a rhyme or reason for anything at the moment.

It was a little before sunset when Erik began wandering the halls on one specific night. He left his room with three things: two he pocketed, and the third was his helmet, which he quickly drew to him last second as he crossed the threshold into the hallway. He held it tucked underneath one arm– tonight he simply felt better having it with him. Almost like a safety blanket.

Unlike most other nights, he had a destination. There was still time to aimlessly walk the halls before he headed down, though. The sunlight filtering through the windows became warmer and darker as he made his way around, and he took slow and steady steps like he knew exactly where he was going, even if the truth was that (for the moment) he didn’t care. It was quiet and no one bothered him, which were the only two things he required.

As he moved, his left hand pulled out a coin– one of the things he pocketed before he left his room. It weaved over and under his fingers, slowly and smoothly, helping to calm any anxious energy that he couldn’t contain inside.

But at the center of everything, it was his heart directing him tonight. At one point it finally decided that it was time to go where it needed to– and his brain didn’t argue. Down he went, and after a short journey he arrived:

**Cerebro**

The door was locked, which didn’t surprise him. Erik found himself staring at the bright blue center as he stood there, left hand holding the coin frozen a few inches above his palm. A quick flick of his wrist flung it back into his pocket.

He couldn’t stand there forever.

Normally, it wouldn’t be possible for anyone other than the intended user to get into the room that stood before him. Erik had never had much of a reason to go in without him, so he never had a reason to break in before. But now he did.

He set the helmet down few feet off to the side and took in a deep breath, closing his eyes and shutting off the world around him. Both hands lifted to a position in front of him, ready to fall flat against the cold metal surface in front of them. They were shaking– so they never made it to the door.

In a small fit of frustration Erik made fists and sharply shot them back their place at his sides. He needed to get his control back, and it just wasn’t happening. As a result, the tension around him built and built– the dead silence of the hall filled with the soft jingling of metal from Erik’s pocket and the dragging sound of his helmet being slowly called towards him across the floor.

Then the tension reached its breaking point.

But he kept it together. In his loss of control he somehow found it, and the movement of metal stopped as silence once again took over. Erik was able to flatten his palms against the door. 

Now he needed to concentrate.

The inner workings of the door were certainly complicated. Using his powers as an extension of himself, he felt his way through the interlocking pieces and began forming an internal map– by the end of his journey he knew exactly how everything fit together down to the smallest detail.

_Another deep breath._

A sharp series of clicks signaled the release of the door. Finally opening his eyes, Erik took a step back and effortlessly slid open the two sides of the entrance with his powers while retrieving his helmet. He now was staring down the bridge into Cerebro– and after all that effort, he found himself frozen in place, unable to take another step forward. It was daunting– almost terrifying.

They were still in the process of fixing the inside of the room– but it wasn’t the debris that bothered him– it was everything else. With it came that overwhelming feeling that he had failed. That he should have done more, that he did everything wrong. His heart was beating out of his chest– so forceful and strained that it was almost painful.

His heart had wanted him here but at the threshold his head was frantically telling him to leave as fast as he could. There was no sense in being here– it would only bring more pain. There was nothing here that he needed to see or needed to do, so why even be here at all?

 **Because he needed to be.**

Before he knew what he was doing, Erik was making his way down the narrow bridge. Every step echoed in the hollowed room, bouncing quietly off panels both untouched and damaged beyond repair. He made the door close behind him and there he was– alone in his own little world. The silence was deafening– another cliché, but he found it to be painfully true.

_In here, in that moment, Erik Lehnsherr felt like the only man left on earth._

He stood centered in front of the panel, looking out to the curved walls that surrounded him. Cerebro’s helmet was in the same place he had left it, which he found both oddly comforting and painfully sad. A quick glance down at it chilled him to the bone.

**Charles was gone.**

Why was it so hard to even _think_ his name? He noticed that he hadn’t spoken it since the day of the fight– and it wasn’t out of some forced habit he made himself acquire. He just **couldn’t do it.**

After what seemed like an eternity, Erik set down his own helmet right beside Charles’. They both faced him, mirroring one another as if they had always been meant to be next to the other. Erik had to remind himself to breathe– something so innate and necessary was odd to think about, but as he was currently, his body needed reminders like that.

In one swift motion, Erik pulled the second object from his pocket and took to the floor, legs crossed one over the other. The surface of the console above him created an even smaller world that he gladly let himself become consumed by– he was here, nothing outside of this room mattered even slightly.

Erik placed both hands in front of him and opened them into a cup– in the center was a small metallic object, smaller than the coin he had been playing with earlier. He rolled it into one hand and gently pinched it between his fingers, slowly turning it around like he was seeing it for the first time.

In his hand, Erik Lehnsherr held the bullet that tore Charles’ world apart all those decades ago.

The bullet that was meant for **_him_** , not for Charles.

The bullet that to this day, had a tight and suffocating hold over him.

Erik’s life was filled with mistake after mistake. What he found to be the most cruel was how his mistakes always, _always_ ended up hurting the people around him. The people that never deserved any hurt to begin with. Why was it that the ones he cared for paid the price for his misdoings?

Charles Xavier had been the one person he seemed to hurt time and time again, despite his efforts otherwise. Was it coincidence? No, no it couldn’t have been coincidence. He was the one person he loved most in this world– whether he ever even admitted it to himself or not. Charles was destined to be repeatedly torn apart since the moment they met, and that was something that Erik just could **_not_** forgive himself for.

There was an emptiness inside of him after losing Charles. It was consuming him second by second, threatening to collapse in on itself. Everyone felt Charles’ loss, but for Erik it was– **it was unbearable.**

He wasn’t sure if he believed in soulmates. The idea always seemed too simplistic. To say that there was one person you belonged with, meant to feel connected to with some unbreakable and inexplicable bond– yet another cliché that he wanted no part in. His heart felt what it felt and it cared for the people it cared for. At times it was selfish and it took more than it gave, but was there truly a person alive who wasn’t guilty of that? Erik watched people come and go in all areas of his life, and soon enough he found himself casting others away before they got too close. If his heart wanted a soulmate, it never made that clear.

That’s what Erik had believed and stood by for years. But Charles had a way of silently and seamlessly breaking down every barrier he fought long and hard to build. Charles was gentle and kind, willing to always give more than he received. There wasn’t an exact moment that Erik could pinpoint– but in time the telepath had become part of him. And that was something he never wanted to lose.

What was it that he said to him?

_“There is so much more to you than you know– not just pain and anger. There’s good, too. **I felt it.”**_

_Good?_ Magneto was not good. He was harsh and unforgiving. He fought hard for what he believed even when it required sacrifice of the worst kind. He was known for his ruthless ways and terrorizing facade. He was a man controlled by loss and a need for control– because if there was only one thing he could accomplish in this life, it would be to prevent his past from repeating itself. **Never again.** That is what he promised the world.

Erik Lehnsherr was not a good man. He never believed that about himself.

What Charles did was make him believe that maybe– _someday–_ he **could** be.

Perhaps the two of them were soulmates. Two sides of the same coin. The _light_ and the **shadows.** Balancing each other like the sun and the moon.

One without the other– that was something that should never happen.

Erik had never felt so alone.

In the center of Cerebro sat a man, heartbroken and unaware of just how much he was hurting.

They had gone through too much together only to be ripped apart like this. They had died and been brought back to life. They fought and they screamed and they were at each other’s throats– but they also knew that they could never truly hate each other. They were different, but at their core they were fundamentally the same. It slowly dawned on him that they were meant to be in each other’s lives– always being drawn together and yanked apart.

Erik loved Charles. _**He loved him–**_ wholeheartedly and without regret.

But now it was too late.

The broken bullet fell to the ground with a sharp clang. His hands were shaking again, much more harshly than before, as they lifted to cover his face. The crying began slowly but it quickly escalated into sobs that wracked his body from the inside out. For days he had held everything inside, keeping quiet and keeping away from other people as much as he could.

Was he destined to lose the ones he loved one by one? He felt cursed– he was a poison, a disease to anyone who was close to him. Perhaps that was his punishment to bear, but loss after loss slowly chipped away at him. He pushed through it every time, **because he was a survivor.** But everyone had their breaking point.

If anyone’s time on this earth was meant to come to an end– it was his. Not theirs.

 _Max Eisenhardt, Erik Lehnsherr–_ **Magneto.**

It didn’t matter who he was– death followed him wherever he went.

Through his sobs, Erik forced apology after apology from his lips.

“I’m so sorry Charles– _I’m so sorry—”_

**I should have been able to save you.**


End file.
